Please be prepared to respond in either seminar meeting or in "Comments" on the course blog. In all venues, you must be prepared to cite specific passages (by page, paragraph, line, and quotation) in support of your responses—and specific works.
The over-arching goal of this section is to create a deeper, more sophisticated, and more nuanced picture of Schoenberg in a crucially under-examined period: in the pre-serial, indeed pre-atonal period, and to find links in these works (approx 1899-1916) both to works and approaches of his immediate predecessors, and to Schoenberg characteristics which would become more central and visible in the atonal and serial works.
(1) As we have said in seminar, Schoenberg himself was at pains to argue his own rootedness in the Austro-German tradition, linking his music to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, and Brahms. What is his stance on Debussy? What does he argue are the motives of the “Latin/Slav” types (essentially he is speaking of French and Russian composers); what sort of alternative does he believe his own music to represent? Do we agree with his historical analysis of the “Latin and Slav hopes of hegemony”? If not, to what might we attribute his stance?
(2) Pay particular attention to Watkins’s discussion of Verklaerte Nacht and Pelleas. While Watkins draws apt comparisons to approaches and programmaticism in Mahler and Strauss, it should also be borne in mind that Debussy himself wrote a setting of the same French myth. Is there a Debussy connection with Schoenberg’s version that goes beyond text and topic? Listen to the music for answers; consider this in terms of Question (1).
(3) In light of Watkins’s discussion of the Gurre-Lieder, what connections can be drawn, to what other composers? What other composers—German or otherwise—were working in similar areas of “antiquity,” “the folk,” and more broadly in late Romanticism? If there are such connections, what SHMRG characteristics would we expect these vocal pieces to reveal, shared with what composers?
(4) In the discussion “Two String Quartets and a Symphony,” what concerns (particularly formal concerns) does Watkins attribute to Schoenberg in the Opp. 7, 9, & 10? To what extent were these formal concerns shared by other composers of the period? What solutions to these formal concerns have we seen employed by Wagner, Strauss, and Mahler? Does Schoenberg employ any related solutions? Is this one of the links between Schoenberg and these others? Finally (very important) what drove these formal concerns; why was form such a concern, in this particular period?
(5) To open outward the above question: were these formal concerns impacting composers outside the Austro-German orbit? Were French, Eastern European, Russian, or other national composers grappling with similar issues? Were their solutions similar, or different?
(6) In the questions above, we have been addressing perhaps-underexamined aspects of Schoenberg’s music which link him to his Austro-German predecessors and contemporaries. In contrast, in pp28-31, Watkins finds Schoenberg employing organizational (especially thematic) strategies that point toward his later, atonal and serial works. What are these strategies? A challenge for you: can you link these thematic strategies both to Schoenberg’s predecessors and to his own post-tonal music? (Hint: look at issues of counterpoint.)
(7) In pp32-36, Watkins explicates Schoenberg’s theories about harmony and about timbre, and about the links between them. What does Schoenberg himself say about these relationships? How and through what techniques do these links play out in his music of the period? How do they impact the sound of his music? Suggestion: think about other modernist composers, working outside the Austro-German tradition, who in the years just before WWI were also exploring issues of sound. Despite the strong contrasts in the “surface” of, say, Stravinsky or Bartok’s music versus Schoenberg’s in this period, in what way do their analogous strategies (even if realized in very different-sounding music) reveal a shared sense of the problems that confronted composers in these years?
2 comments:
1. In regards to the paragraph and succeeding statement on p. 24, he seems to state that he has not abandoned the music of the great German composers, but claims to be a part of that legacy, with hopes that he will be as great as that legacy. He seems to state that the German tradition is the greatest tradition for which all other composers, most notably Debussy, have learned and followed. He states that Debussy is just another part of the German tradition, and certainly not a person that has created something new for the hegemony of the Latin/Slav types.
2. In regards to programmiticism, I find the most interesting statement is his journal entry quoted on p. 36. His publisher forced titles for the Five Pieces. His goal in creating the titles were to be as vague as possible, yet three of the pieces had psychological derivatives. Obviously, he has not escaped the programmatic, nor has he kept from Romantic tendencies.
1) It seems to me that Schoenberg's comments about Debussy are a careful way of simultaneously claiming and dismissing Debussy's significance. He seems to be saying "well, OK, I guess Debussy got it right, but only because he was really writing like a German."
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